When photographing people, try to pose them in a way that’s not too staged or fake. Try to keep your subject relaxed by giving them something to hold onto eg. a glass, a newspaper etc.Sit your subject down and keep them talking so they’re not focusing on the camera and feel more relaxed.

Use a wide aperture 2.8 to 4 so you’ll have a very shallow depth of field to make the face slightly soft and avoid any distracting objects in the background. The focus should be on eye closest to the camera. When making a portrait of a woman try and avoid having strong shadows on her face. Any shadows should be soft and compliment the shape of her face. For a man the shadows can be stronger to create a more chiseled masculine feel to the photograph.

Angles and Viewpoints

Straight on – at eye level the photograph doesn’t over emphasize any particular part of the subject. Especially useful when photographing kids.

From Sslightly Above – makes the subject look more passive or even sultry. Body shape becomes stronger and the focus on the eyes becomes greater.

From Slightly Below – can make the subject appear somewhat aloof or dominant.

From Below –A full length portrait from this position emphasizes power and dominance.A wide angle lens can exaggerate this effect further but use sparingly.

I was recently nominated from amongst thousands of entrants in the Nude Category of the prestigious Black and White Spider awards. To just be nominatedfor arguably one of the most prestigious black and whitephotographyawards was truly an honor.

Starting in November I’ll be commencing a 10 week Beginners course in D/SLRPhotography.The course will be held in Budapest’s University District not far from Kalvin Ter.Each class will be approximately 90 minutes, with classes available in the day and evening. The course in English will cover topics such as Exposure, Lenses, Composition, Portraiture, Studio Photography and much more.For more information please call Francis Keating on 06 30513 2897 or email me at admin@dejavuphotographic.com

A series of my more surreal fine art photographs can be found in the Fall Anniversary edition of Carrie Leigh’s Nude now available in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Austria and Luxembourg. This issue also features the beautiful photographic fine art of Carrie Leigh, Nick Ash and Elena Vasilieva as well as a fascinatiing interview with American comedian turned actor/writer Robert Wuhl.

This is my Tides Exhibition,but this one is more about the environment, When I took this photo it struck me that its a shame such a beutiful location has to be destroyed by a power station. So the idea of this photo was to create a feeling of some kind of apocalyptic disaster eg, Nuclear. with a survivor stripped of everything hanging onto rock for survival. Something like that but anyway you canmake up your own mind about it